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Thursday, June 12, 2008

Defying the Bullets

Heroes and tragedies of the legendary “bullet catch trick”

“Don't try the bullet-catching trick. There is always the biggest kind of risk that some dog will 'job' you. And we can't afford to lose Houdini. Harry, listen to your friend Kellar, who loves you as his own son, and don't do it!”

(Letter from magician Harry Kellar to Houdini)

In 1918, few years before this letter, magician Chung Ling Soo was killed onstage during his most popular act, “Condemed to Death by the Boxers”:or, catching a bullet from a rifle with his teeths. Perhaps the best known famous tragedy from the golden era of stage entertainment, this was not at all the first of his kind.

Performing the same feat, in 1820s Torrini “count” de Grisy shot on stage his own son; his contemporary De Linsky killed his wife. Before them, as back as 1613, Coulew de Lorraine was killed by an assistant; later, Kia Khan Kruse by a spectator in 1818, and Edvin Lindberg in 1905. The mentioned De Linky shot himself in 1820. Arnold Buck (1840) died when a volunteer secretly added nails to the gun; Adam Epstein (1869), used to ram home the balls in the rifle barrel, broke inside the gun; he was killed by wand shards. Raoul Curran was killed in 1880 by a member of the audience who jumped up out of his seat and shot him without warning; deLine Jr (1890) died when his magician father shot him onstage. Michael Hatal (1899) failed to switch blank cartridges for the real bullets that killed him; Otto “Bosco” Blumenfeld (1906) also failed to switch bullets as, later, H. T. Sartell; "The Black Wizard of the West" (1922) lost his life when his wife purposely fired live bullets at him. Ralf Bialla (1972) fell off a cliff because of constant dizziness caused by injuries from bullet catching act; Doc Conrad (1977) was killed during practice of the Russian Roulette trick, a version of the Bullet Catch; Fernando Tejada (1988) killed onstage during a performance in Columbia.

With much more chance and success, fortunately is also possible to attempt a list of survivors in magically catching a bullet, even if the catalogue is shorter. It can be unespectedly initiated by Sergeant Philip Astley, the very same inventor of the moder circus, that in the 1780s falsely proclamed to be the inventor of this more ancient trick. John Henry Anderson, great wizard of the North safely popularized it; as J.E. Robert-Houdin, Alexander and brave Adelaide Hermann.

Then, in the slowly fading of magic golden era, Theo Annemann, Rooklyn with his shoulders protected by a chainmail, Jean Hugard with the South African army pointing at his heart, the spectacular Ralf Bialla from Germany, Milbourne Cristopher, Dorothy Dietrich, Paul Daniels, up to today’s Penn and Teller with their remarkable version.

But a lesson in showmanship performing this piece of magic can be surely have an example in master British mentalist Maurice Fogel: we recently discovered him in the “bullet catch” from a rare vintage newsreel.

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Raffaele De Ritis

Impostor of the international stage arts, he is said out from a noble estinguished family of Southern Italy. From childhood he attempted escapes to the strolling life. Without refusing an academic theatrical education in Rome and Paris, he began to earn his life in the frequentation of carny barkers, crocodile hypnotists, quick-change virtuosos, aerialists, actors, ballet étoiles.Nobody knows why and when producers began trusting in his directorial services, spreading his signature around the globe: from Savary, Brachetti, or Larible; to American sanctuaries as Big Apple Circus or Cirque du Soleil. It is in his hands that Feld dared to put the concept of Barnum’s Kaleidoscape; and the Princess Grace Theatre of Monte Carlo or Spoleto Festival trusted for magic events or Shakespeare stagings.He wrote books and dictionaries about theatre, circus and magic; his signature infestated in the last 20 years major international circus periodicals. Mentalism, training of escapologists, academic lecturing on silent movies are other ways to assure his existence besides writing and directing.Mixing forgotten Martini recipes and tracking theatrical memorabilia are his beloved pastimes.